By Joe Maniscalco

The heads of New York City’s public sector unions are once again calling on Speaker Adrienne Adams [D-28th District] to spike efforts to safeguard the existing Medicare health insurance benefits thousands of municipal retirees and their families depend.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City Mayor Eric Adams attempted some nifty ducking and diving when Work-Bites correspondent Bob Hennelly asked him pointblank on Tuesday why his administration persists in promoting Medicare Advantage.

By Steve Wishnia

A state Supreme Court judge in Albany has annulled the state Department of Labor’s decision to cancel its investigations into wage theft from home health-care aides who worked 24-hour shifts but only got paid for 13 hours.

By Joe Maniscalco

As far as many working class people are concerned, New York has become an increasingly strange and cockamamie place where shuttering neighborhood hospitals, stripping retirees of their traditional Medicare coverage, forcing older women of color to work round the clock shifts as home health aides, and selling off NYCHA housing are all treated as viable economic actions—but compelling Wall Street traders to pay their taxes and help keep the whole place from completely falling apart is just crazy talk.

By Steve Wishnia

As a caravan of striking Uber and Lyft drivers neared City Hall on Oct. 23, many of their rear windshields bore “Stop Unfair Deactivations!” placards.

A bill pending in the New York City Council is intended to do just that. Intro 276, sponsored by Councilmember Shekar Krishnan (D-Queens) and 11 others, would prohibit the “wrongful deactivation” of drivers at the two “high-volume for-hire vehicle” companies.

By Joe Maniscalco

As terrible as former New York City Transit worker Lloyd Archer knew profit-driven Medicare Advantage health insurance would be for TWU Local 100 retirees like him, he didn’t think they’d be experiencing the level of pain they’re experiencing now. 

By Steve Wishnia

Hundreds of Uber and Lyft drivers formed a massive caravan from Hudson Yards to City Hall Oct. 23, marking a one-day strike to protest the companies locking drivers out of their apps to avoid triggering an increase in the drivers’ share of fares.

By Joe Maniscalco

“We are winning this Fight!”

New York City municipal retirees rallied outside City Hall on Wednesday in advance of a new bill by City Council Member Chris Marte that could finally end Mayor Eric Adams’ ongoing campaign to strip former city workers of the Medicare health insurance coverage they where promised at the start of their civil service careers.

By Joe Maniscalco

The annual Workers Unite! Film Festival is back in New York City for its 13th season this week, presenting another rare opportunity to shift the focus away from the corporate bosses—and place it squarely on the real world struggles and triumphs of working people everywhere.

By Steve Wishnia

More than 2,500 workers at a Brooklyn-based home health-care agency, along with another 880 at a medical lab in Nassau County, have added themselves to the ranks of 1199SEIU.

By Joe Maniscalco

This week, New York City municipal retirees donned chilling death shrouds and held a mass “die-in” in front of Aetna’s Manhattan offices at One Soho Square to dramatize their opposition to Mayor Eric Adams’ ongoing Medicare Advantage push—and the need to finally pass the New York Health Act.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been hit with a 57-page, 5-count federal indictment, been called unfit to serve, and urged to resign—but he’s still determined to push 250,000 municipal retirees into a profit-driven health insurance plan experts and the courts say diminishes existing Medicare benefits.

By Bob Hennelly

Courtesy of InsiderNJ

This past week, our region and the great world beyond woke up to reports of the indictment of Mayor Eric Adams on what turned out to be corruption charges. This unprecedented development comes amidst the climax of the most consequential presidential election since 1864 when our nation was caught up in the Civil War.

By Joe Maniscalco

“UFT, DC37 have to stop f——-g with our healthcare…stop selling out our retirees…stop f——-g over actives.”

A couple of weeks ago, a group New York City municipal retirees fighting the City of New York’s ongoing campaign to strip them of their existing Medicare benefits and push them into a profit-driven “Medicare Dis-Advantage” plan took to the streets of Manhattan to denounce the scheme and to advocate passage of the New York Health Act.

By Bob Hennelly

Another weekend, another Adams administration bombshell served up late on Saturday night with an NYPD tweet from interim police commissioner Thomas Donlon that “federal authorities executed search warrants” at his residences and that they “took materials that came into my possession approximately 20 years ago and are unrelated to my work with the New York City Police Department.”

By Joe Maniscalco

After helping to spearhead the ongoing campaign to push 250,000 New York City municipal retirees into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan, UFT President Michael Mulgrew now says the union is “firmly against a Medicare Advantage plan for our retirees.”

By Steve Wishnia

“We will not stand for racism, bias, and discrimination,” Brooklyn Assemblymember Stefanie Zinerman told about 100 health-care workers on the sidewalk outside Interfaith Medical Center September 18. “We love pets. We do not eat pets!”

By Joe Maniscalco

UFT President Michael Mulgrew may have officially backed out on the City of New York’s ongoing campaign to push 250,000 municipal retirees into a profit-driven “Medicare Dis-Advantage” health insurance they do not want—he still insists it doesn’t pose the threat opponents say it does.

By Bob Hennelly

Chants of “What do we want? A fair contract! When do we want it? Now!” boomed throughout the concrete canyons around 230 Park Ave. in mid-town  this week as  250 members of Law360’s unionized staff  hit the bricks in an unfair labor practice strike against their highly profitable employer.

By Bob Hennelly

Courtesy of InsiderNJ

This Labor Day workers who hoped the state’s court system would end Trenton’s exemption for Atlantic City’s casinos from the state’s 2006 Smoke-Free Air Act that entitles workers to work in a smoke free environment were dealt a real disappointment by a judge who sided with the casino industry to keep the oppressively toxic exemption in place.